There are many types of games wherein the players attempt to match answers or results to prompt questions. Frequently, such games involve either writing down answers in words or phrases, or matching graphic characteristics. There are other games wherein the answers, though in numeric form, are compared to the actual numerical solutions to the questions on the prompt cards. Such board games are indicated and exemplified in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,328,308, 3,734,510, 5,054,775, 7,654,533, and 8,496,517, and Patent Application Publication No. US 2010/0301563A1, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes.
The present invention attempts to overcome deficiencies of the prior art by limiting the answers to the range 1 to 10 representing levels of agreement (and do not represent real-life quantities). Because of this, players can guess using voting chips, rather than writing their answers on paper. The numeric answer is the “Chief's” rating of his/her own opinion and, therefore, no mathematical skills or direct knowledge of the subject of the questions on the prompt cards are necessary.
Although some board games in prior art and our patent application here may all involve presenting players with questions that can be answered numerically, those board games in the prior art typically deal with “trivia questions” that have factually correct answers (generally written on opposite side of the question card). However, our application, on the other hand, specifically involves opinion-based questions for which the answer necessarily depends on the identity of the current question-asker (“Chief” in the claims). One notable consequence of this is that our game can be replayed numerous times with the same set of question cards.
The present invention also includes a unique scoring system in which there are different “colors” or “shapes” of victory points, awarded by different players. In fact, to win the game, one has to collect victory points of all different colors or shapes, providing motivation to get to know all other players, instead of just knowing one other player extremely well. Those games described in the prior art usually don't distinguish sources of victory points.
In addition, the present invention provides an objective opportunity to earn victory points. Unlike other conversation-starter games such as Say Anything and Apples to Apples, there is no pressure for the active player to choose an arbitrary favorite answer, and king-making is impossible; the active player does not have the power to favor a certain player.